FFXV director Tabata leaves Square Enix, planned DLC shelved

Hajime Tabata, Final Fantasy XV’s game director, has left Square Enix to form a new studio called JP Games.

As a result, Square Enix has announced the cancellation of much of the downloadable content it had planned for Final Fantasy XV. March 2019’s Episode Ardyn DLC is still on schedule to launch, but the subsequent Episodes Aranea, Lunafreya and Noctis have now been shelved.

Until his October 31 resignation, Tabata also headed Luminous productions, Square Enix’s most recently established development studio, which is staffed by many members of the original Final Fantasy XV team, and which was responsible for an “Extraordinary loss” of about $33 million reported in the company’s most recent half-yearly financial results.

The announcement of the cancellation of Final Fantasy XV DLC and the resignation of Hajime Tabata was made in a video fronted by FFXV global brand director Akio Ofuji (fast-forward to 3.30). Ofuji explained that Luminous Productions was primarily set up to: “Deliver a completely new triple-A title to the market,” so Square Enix has moved financial resources away from Final Fantasy XV’s DLC.

Meanwhile, Tabata has said that, at JP Games, he will be working on “A brand new project”. On Facebook, he added that JP Games will properly commence development in January 2019. To keep up to date with Final Fantasy XV news, keep an eye on its website.

Steve Boxer has been writing about videogames since the early 1990s. His first console was an Atari VCS, and he misspent most of his youth in the 1980s in the arcades. As well as for Green Man Gaming, he can be found writing for The Guardian, Empire, TechRadar and Pocket-Lint. He’s currently having trouble deciding whether his favourite console is his Xbox One X or his Switch, and plays a wide range of games, but especially RPGs (he loves a good JRPG) action-adventure titles, shooters of all descriptions and driving games. Follow him here.